Political Point of View: Parties and Coalitions | Jorge Alcocer V.

Jorge Alcocer V.

In the debate about the application of the restrictions set out in Article 54 of the Constitution, the central issue is their application to electoral coalitions. Those who claim that these restrictions do not apply to them use literalism as their sole argument. I refer to this argument below, repeating those that those of us who hold the opposite position make in response to the official party.

First. The official party and its representatives argue that five sections of Article 54 refer to “parties” and not coalitions, so that a literal interpretation of Sections IV and V (no more than 300 deputies under both principles and a maximum of 8 percentage points of overrepresentation, respectively) would mean that these restrictions do not apply to coalitions.

As the Citizen Observatory has stated, the current text of Article 54 of the Constitution is taken from the 1996 electoral reform, which, apart from an adjustment to the minimum voting requirement to maintain registration, has not undergone any changes. From 1997 to 2006, there was no doubt about the application of the two above-mentioned restrictions to coalitions, as expressly established in several articles of COFIPE. It should be noted that these rules established that, for the purposes of appointing multi-member deputies and senators, coalitions would be considered as a single party. Due to the numerical sequence and the logic of Article 54, it was obvious that the limit of 300 deputies – by virtue of both principles – would also apply to electoral coalitions.

In 2008, the rule that coalitions must be considered as the same party for the purpose of appointing multi-member deputies and senators was removed from COFIPE. This change had only one reason: since 2009, each party must put forward its own lists of multi-member candidates. Previously, coalitions had postulated common lists, i.e. the same multi-member list for two or more parties. No document of the 2007-2008 reform stated that the five sections of Article 54 would not apply to coalitions.

Since 2009, the electoral authorities have interpreted Article 54 inconsistently. Regarding Section I, which sets the requirement for each party to register at least 200 candidates for majority seats in order to be eligible to register multi-member lists, they interpreted it as follows: this requirement can be met through a coalition. That is, where it says “party”, they interpreted it as “party or coalition”. But regarding faction V, they argued that the 8-point overrepresentation limit should apply to the party, not to the coalition. The same inconsistency is defended by the ruling party today.

Those of us who postulate that Morena and her allies should not have more than 300 deputies on both principles, as well as an overrepresentation exceeding 8 percentage points, do so for a uniform interpretation of Article 54 of the Constitution. That is to say, if Section I was interpreted as meaning that the requirement for parties can be met through coalitions in which they are part, then by a simple comparison it should be interpreted that the limits of Sections IV and V, in which equally constitute are mentioned only in relation to “parties”, are also applicable to coalitions. The fact that in the past the INE and the TEPJF have interpreted and applied Article 54 of the Constitution inconsistently does not oblige them to continue to do so.

Second: Regarding the limit of Title IV (maximum of 300 deputies), neither the IFE/INE nor the TEPJF gave an interpretation, since the coalition never intended to have more than 300 deputies on both principles. In 2018, the Morena/PT/PES coalition exceeded this limit, but since the PES lost its legal registration, the 56 majoritarian deputies that Morena had transferred to it by agreement remained without membership, so this coalition was considered not to have exceeded the constitutional limit. That is to say, there is no precedent, administrative or jurisdictional, that could be referred to in the current debate.

We can refer to the origin and purpose of the restrictions established in 1996 in Article 54 of the Constitution, which can be read in the initiatives, opinions and debates in the plenary sessions of the two chambers of the Congress of the Union. The agreement between the government and its party (Ernesto Zedillo/PRI) led to the self-limitation of the PRI. The thesis of the 70/98 jurisprudence is also in force, which the ruling party refuses to take into account.

In the Chamber of Deputies, which has a total of 500 seats, a qualified majority with all those present is achieved with 334 votes. The first limitation, established in Article 54, was 350 deputies, which was later reduced to 315, and in 1996 to 300. This limitation was established so that no political force, party or coalition, regardless of the percentage of votes, could carry out reform on its own. The Constitution itself.

It was a state pact that in 1996 President Ernesto Zedillo and his party (PRI) concluded with the leaders of the two most important opposition parties of the time: Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, president of the PAN, and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, president of the PAN.

Today, the ruling party intends to unilaterally reverse what was achieved in 1996, in order to fraudulently obtain an overwhelming majority in the Chamber of Deputies, which the electorate did not give it the right to do. To claim that Morena, with just over 40% of the votes, controls 373 deputies, that is, 75% of the entire Chamber, is an abuse. It would be a violation of the Constitution and a severe blow to democracy.

The question for President Lopez Obrador is: will he keep the word he gave in 1996?

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